THE BABY MILL [[{SHINee}]]

THE BABY MILL [[26]] BLOATED

            When the slight worker came and helped drag TaeMin's body onto a wheelchair to be transferred he was met with befuddlement. To have been rudely awoken from his shallow sleep didn't help disperse the fog shrouding his vision and by the time they'd turned the first corner and been joined by another worker and the she-devil it barely hit that he was being transferred back into his own room. Finally he could leave the baneful smells of the medical room and the withering corpse that had been his roommate during the final days of his stay.

            Rectangles of light infiltrated TaeMin's personal space. With each new area of light they passed underneath it highlighted the mountain growing on his body. It'd been so long and it was still expanding... He knew from his last examination that they were both stable which shocked him to say the least since he was constantly uncomfortable and nauseous; the epitome of ill health.

            Miracles were at work... They were forming in his plastic womb and were squirming in its little fetal shape. Beautifully horrific. It was something he’d feared, but he realized now, as his love and pity grew for the thing, that he had feared losing it because that would make him a lost cause. It, be it boy, girl or mutant, had saved his life and even if it was an alien to his body and society he would never stop loving it… He owed it so much already…

            As if feeling the love it was receiving the child resting in the mountain wiggled its body around (if it even had one, TaeMin wasn’t sure). The movement was agonizing but the boy clamped his jaw together and rode out the sensation, repeating his count in his head. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. A couple repetitions later and the thing steadied itself.

            If he’d had the energy needed to speak he would have sung a lullaby to the child to soothe it. Unfortunately, the drugs dripping into his veins were keeping him in a drowsy state that left him struggling just to blink.

            “Make sure to change the bag,” the she-devil instructed.

            TaeMin had been so involved in his affections that he hadn’t noticed that they’d come to a standstill. Alas, he’d reached his room where part of the loneliness instilled due to his separation with Onew would subside thanks to his developing alien. Too bad the nightmares didn’t leave with it…

            In his euphoria it took a long time for TaeMin to notice that the four walls incasing his bloated, skeleton body were not the same as the ones from before his infection. Or rather, they were but now everything was pretty cramped due to the fact that another bed was pressed next to TaeMin’s with barely a foot to divide them. His bed had been turned so the backboard was against the wall and wedged in the corner instead of the side. The matching bed was position the same but had no corner to cushion it and a lump was lying beneath the single sheet.

            Suspicion seeded itself TaeMin’s chest. Surely he wasn’t in the same room as another boy… That would go against everything Dr. Park preached to his crew and patients. The very idea of him sharing a room in the medical wing had ruffled up the doctor’s feathers. And yet when he sneaked a look over the shoulder of the worker lowering his body onto the mattress his eyes connected with the intruding boy’s. The baby kicked a little and he winced, automatically wanting to drag his hands to his stomach so he could protect it from the sparks burning deep in the glare he was receiving. Recognition pricked at his senses but he was too preoccupied with the tantrum his plastic child was suddenly throwing to follow his hunch. But he had seen that face before…

            He was staring straight at him. Slit eyes greener than the emeralds forming the palace in the Wizard of Oz. Dense eyelashes accentuated his lids, giving him the effect that he was wearing make-up when in fact it was all his natural beauty. Cheek bones looked like they would dominate his face as his jaw line was hard and protruding so obviously from his narrow face. But somehow TaeMin was convinced that even if his entire face did end up being dominated by his facial structure those green eyes would still leer at him in the same way. So… Strange.

            One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight nine, ten.

            Calm was the baby and calm he was, otherwise he would scare more than just the plastic child in him.

            “Be careful,” the she-devil snapped when a careless swipe of a worker’s hand caused a tremor of pain to ripple throughout TaeMin’s body. And when he thought he’d calmed down, too…

            One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

            From then on, the two men were more precautious with their movements. It was an excruciating process nonetheless. TaeMin wished he was induced into a coma so he wouldn’t have to deal with the jerky movements and feelings of falling. The needle simply had to pull out of his hand as well, prolonging his agony. When stars appeared in TaeMin’s line of vision he thought he would actually be graced with a peaceful state of mind and body but then all was done and the colourful dots returned to a blank, white ceiling where an imperfection in the tiles smiled at him with pointed teeth.

            Silence caught TaeMin in its warm arms. For once he didn’t struggle against the hold and instead embraced it as an object of comfort. Weariness mooched off his strength; the fluids hydrating him with a blend of H2O and medication not boosting him at all… As exhausted as he was he forgot about his new roommate and let the paranoia jump out of his plane of nerves. And he would forget him still as he drifted off with that plane and into the country of dreams where sleep lived and where he would rest with his plastic child in his womb.